Match Preview : Barça VS Athletic Club

Match Preview : Barça VS Athletic Club – La Liga

It’s a huge day, for a lot of different reasons. But finally after yet another 2 week international break, Barça are back in action. Live from 4:15pm local time, we face up against Athletic Club. However, we wont be playing at the Estadi Olympic Lluis Companys at Montjuic, because FINALLY after over 900 days away, we are BACK at the Spotify Camp Nou. We are finally back home. It’s a monumental, historic day for the club. We’ve been waiting so long just to get back to this beautiful stadium. We’ve missed it a lot, and its crazy to think that quite a lot of the players in the team right now, who have established themselves over the last few years, haven’t yet played a game at the Camp Nou. So its a huge day for the players too. But, just to be back at our actual home stadium, it just feels amazing. The club have planned quite a bumper unveiling event, to mark our return home. It’s going to be an afternoon and a day of celebration. But of course, we hope that carries onto the pitch as well, for a game that really wont be easy for us. So lets jump straight into the match preview.

A Quick Look at our opponents:

In terms of our opponents for the day, Athletic Club, are a historic team. The only other club, along with Barça and Madrid that have never been relegated from the primera division. For their standards, i think they’re having a pretty decent season so far. With a lot of their best work coming at home, at San Mammes. They’re sitting comfortably above mid table, fighting in the UEFA Champions League too. They’re not doing particularly well in that competition, but as an experience for the club and the fans, its priceless. Of course the big name linked between both clubs, especially over the summer, is Nico Williams. For two summers in a row now, he has taken Barça for the ride, and ultimately wasted the club’s time. There was that big thing in the transfer window about Athletic club demanding that La liga hand over confidential documents that would be seen to prove we hadn’t got the funds to activate Nico’s release clause. In the end though, they got what they wanted, he signed a 10 year contract extension and ultimately ruined his chances of ever signing for Barça. With all that drama on the back burner, it will be very interesting to see the reception, not only Nico receives, but Athletic Club as a whole. Regardless of all that though, it is a massive game, and that cant be understated.

Predicted lineup:

Coming into the game, we will be without a few players, especially in midfield, due to injury or suspension. But the massive piece of news is the return of Joan Garcia, Raphinha and Lamine Yamal. Whilst Pedri looks set to return for the Chelsea game in midweek. It’s absolutely massive for us to be able to rely on Garcia and Raphinha again. We’ve had to wait to a while to finally get them back in the squad, and we’ve really missed them both. Garcia’s overall confidence and security in goal and Raphinha’s leadership, energy and of course his quality. We’ve missed it so much and i think over the months we haven’t been with Rapha especially, I think people have realised just how important he is to the team. We will be without Pedri and Frenkie after the latter picked up a pretty harsh red card in our last game against Celta. So will this give the opportunity for us to see Marc Bernal in midfield. We’ve been very careful with him, and rightfully so, but it would be great to see him start to build up some regular minutes, coming on in every game and fighting to get back into the starting lineup in the long run.